School board approves new high school boundaries

TEMECULA -- Boundaries that will realign high school attendance
areas will go into effect this August as a result of a school board
decision Tuesday.

The Temecula Valley Unified School District Board of Trustees
voted 4-0 to establish the new boundaries in anticipation of the
opening of Great Oak High School in the 2004-05 school year.

The board approved the so-called Option 3 over the objections of
a roomful of French Valley parents. Trustee Ken Ray was absent.

School district administrators had drawn up three options and
presented them to parents and trustees last month. The proposals
were drawn up with the goal of minimizing disruption to the lives
of students and families, even with the opening of the district's
fourth high school as early as August 2007, Assistant
Superintendent Jeff Okun said.

Tuesday's decision also guarantees that Great Oak High will open
in August with freshmen and sophomores.

With the new boundaries, students now in Chaparral High School's
attendance area north of Murrieta Hot Springs Road are assigned to
Temecula Valley High School, which is farther away. A portion of
students in the Temecula Valley High School area will go to Great
Oak High School. Two small pockets of Chaparral High students who
live east of Butterfield Stage Road are now in the Great Oak
attendance area.

However, high school students who don't want to leave their
school can apply for an intradistrict transfer by March 15.
Chaparral students will be guaranteed a spot there, allowing them
to finish their high school careers there. Temecula Valley High
students whose home school is now Great Oak could stay with a
transfer, based on the availability of space.

The school district will provide bus service to French Valley
students who will attend Temecula Valley High because it is now
considered their home school, but not to Chaparral next year,
district officials said.

French Valley parents at the meeting, some of whom have children
in the eighth grade who would be sent to Temecula Valley High, said
they are concerned about their kids spending more than 40 minutes
on a bus. They said they are worried about unsafe commutes. Others
said they are single parents and, while they may be able to keep
their kids at Chaparral, they can't afford the cost to bus or the
time to drive them to school.

Many parents at the meeting said they felt blind-sided by
Tuesday's meeting, adding that they never received letters from the
school district informing them of last month's meeting. Robin Gant,
a French Valley parent, said she had collected 500 names of parents
supporting a different option that would guarantee their children's
home high school is Chaparral.

"We kind of feel like we were pushed aside," said Michael Wood,
a French Valley resident whose son is in middle school.

Several parents and a student from the Temeku Hills and
Chardonnay Hills areas spoke in favor of Option 3, saying that
attendance boundaries for their subdivisions have been split over
the years and they are glad to be able to have a final home high
school.

The meeting became heated with parents shouting out of turn and
applauding at other times.

On boundary issues, there is "always a board meeting where there
are threats" and accusations, Trustee Barbara Tooker said. "We need
to make it (a decision) based on facts and not emotion."

Option 3 is the best way to keep enrollment balanced equally
between the three high schools, said Shirley Cordner, the
district's coordinator of facilities planning. It will allow Vail
Ranch Middle School students to stay together, rather than being
split up. It also will eliminate the need for moving high school
students again until the fourth high school opens.

The new boundaries will prevent overcrowding at Chaparral High
that is expected to happen within two years, a staff report
states.

Board members asked if the decision could be tabled to come up
with a solution to please French Valley parents, but staff members
said that would set the district behind in planning.

The Great Oak attendance area ranges from the south side of
Highway 79 South, and extends north on the east side of Butterfield
Stage Road to Pauba Road. From there, the area arcs east and north
to the district's boundary beyond Lake Skinner.